Software agent for monitoring content relevance

ABSTRACT

A reputation monitoring system provides a software process that runs continuously to identify content that is fast moving and deserving of attention by an organizational representative. The system includes a software agent designed to proactively alert subscribers to potentially concerning movements of a content item within search result rankings. The agent tracks a threshold number of search results over time, and utilizes additional contextual services to determine whether to deliver an alert to subscribers. It is not uncommon for negative items to be written about an individual or organization on the web. There is significant value in being able to identify when negative items are written and if they are gaining notoriety. The reputation monitoring system provides a solution by monitoring search results.

BACKGROUND

An organization's reputation may be one of the most important assetsthat the organization possesses. For example, a company's sales may bedetermined, in part, by how well customers trust the company to deliverproducts of a high quality and on time to the customer. Many customersdetermine whether they will deal with a particular business by how acustomer service department of the business will handle things that gowrong (e.g., a missing shipment, damaged goods, and so on). Manyorganizations have built substantial reputations around the quality oftheir customer service and others have suffered due to negativeimpressions of their customer service.

For example, one popular story in 2009 was that of United Airlinespassenger Dave Carroll who claimed that his guitar was destroyed by theairline's baggage handlers during a flight. United Airlines would notreimburse Mr. Carroll for the damage, so he wrote a song called “UnitedBreaks Guitars” that swept the Internet for its cleverness and humor.The damage to United's brand was estimated by one author to be $180million based on the 10% plunge in United's share price following theincident.

As another example, blogger Jeff Jarvis on his blog Buzz Machine(www.buzzmachine.com) detailed a negative experience that he had withDell customer service. Before long, the blog became the #4 search resulton popular search engines for keywords related to Dell, so thatcustomers were more likely to find Mr. Jarvis's negative experience thaninformation put forth by the company or others having positiveexperiences with its products. The notoriety of the blog was furtherenhanced when major publications, such as Business Week, began to coverthe story and focus even more attention on what perhaps started out as asmall mistake by the company. The damage to Dell's reputation wasextensive.

Internet forums and other online gathering places are increasinglybecoming places where brands are discussed and where an organization'sreputation can be affected by “word-of-mouth” communications of whichthe organization may not even be aware. Numerous forums exist wherereviews can be posted and where users can discuss experiences withparticular companies. Ratings agencies may rate a company based on suchdiscussions. Some users have even created web sites with the specificpurpose of discussing bad experiences with a particular company. Forexample, the site I Hate Starbucks (www.ihatestarbucks.com) allows usersto discuss bad experiences with the coffee maker Starbucks.

In the world of the real-time web, organizations need to be able toreadily identify content that merits urgent attention from a publicrelations (PR) or customer relationship perspective. The explodingamount of content on the Internet makes it difficult for anyorganization to be aware of everything that is being said about them. Insome cases, the allegations may be false or may be easily rectifiedbefore a customer is too upset by the company being aware of the problemat the proper level of management. Unfortunately, information moves sofast that organizations are slow to react and the damage to theorganization's brand may be extensive before the organization providesits first public response.

SUMMARY

A reputation monitoring system is described herein that provides asoftware process that runs continuously to identify content that is fastmoving and deserving of attention by an organizational representative.The system includes a software agent designed to proactively alertsubscribers to potentially concerning movements of a web item withinsearch result rankings. The agent tracks a threshold number of searchresults over time, and utilizes additional contextual services todetermine whether to deliver an alert to subscribers. It is not uncommonfor negative items to be written about an individual or organization onthe web. There is significant value in being able to identify whennegative items are written and if they are gaining notoriety. Thereputation monitoring system provides a solution by monitoring searchresults. Thus, the reputation monitoring system brings the automationand constant vigilance possible through software to the area of brandmanagement to monitor result rankings, derive context, and monitor anyvariances in that context to drive business workflows defined by anorganization.

This Summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in asimplified form that are further described below in the DetailedDescription. This Summary is not intended to identify key features oressential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended tobe used to limit the scope of the claimed subject matter.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram that illustrates components of the reputationmonitoring system, in one embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a flow diagram that illustrates processing of theadministrative interface component of the reputation monitoring system,in one embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a flow diagram that illustrates processing of the reputationmonitoring system to monitor online content movement, in one embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

A reputation monitoring system is described herein that provides asoftware process that runs continuously to identify content that is fastmoving and deserving of attention by an organizational representative.The system includes a software agent designed to proactively alertsubscribers to potentially concerning movements of a web item withinsearch result rankings. Items ranked highly by a search engine todaywere at one time new items on the 10th or greater page of searchresults. The agent tracks a threshold number of search results (e.g.,the top 100) over time, and utilizes additional contextual services(e.g. item sentiment, author influence, and so forth) to determinewhether to deliver an alert to subscribers. It is not uncommon fornegative items to be written about an individual or organization on theweb. There is significant value in being able to identify when negativeitems are written and if they are gaining notoriety. The reputationmonitoring system provides a solution by monitoring search results.Conventional wisdom is that very few users venture beyond five pages ofsearch results, so the ability to identify when a search result item isgaining notoriety when it is on pages 6-10—and to do so in an automatedfashion—provides an organization the opportunity to change theperception of the author (and thus the existence or tone of the webitem) or significant lead time to prepare a response before damage isdone to a brand's reputation. Thus, the reputation monitoring systembrings the automation and constant vigilance possible through softwareto the area of brand management to monitor result rankings, derivecontext (rank, sentiment, influence), and monitor any variances in thatcontext to drive business workflows defined by an organization.

The software agent described herein may monitor a variety of sources,such as popular search engines (e.g., Bing, Google, and Yahoo),proprietary searches (e.g., Twitter, Facebook), particular blogs andforums, and so forth. The system identifies a position of various searchresults and monitors the movement of the position over time to determineincreasing popularity of an item. An organization may not have theresources to respond to every negative (or positive) things said aboutthe organization online, and the system helps to prioritize responses byidentifying those items that are fast moving and relevant (or soon to berelevant). The system allows the organization to be notified and toengage appropriate personnel to create a response and minimize anydamage from the online discussion. For example, a corporation may engagea senior customer service professional to assist the author of anegative comment to help resolve the author's dispute with thecorporation. As another example, an organization may put forth a pressrelease to establish facts about an incident that the organizationbelieves are being misrepresented by a disgruntled author. In this way,the company can stay ahead of discussions that are likely to have anoverall affect on its brand.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram that illustrates components of the reputationmonitoring system, in one embodiment. The system 100 includes a resultsretrieving component 110, a results processing component 120, asentiment component 130, a statistics component 140, a statistics store150, a monitoring component 160, an alert component 170, and anadministrative interface component 180. Each of these components isdescribed in further detail herein.

The results retrieving component 110 periodically retrieves entriesrelated to a topic of interest from a listing source. For example, thecomponent 110 may periodically retrieve search results based on keywordsrelated to the topic of interest from an Internet-based search engine.The component 110 may also retrieve other types of entries, such asentries of RSS feeds, results from social networks (e.g., Twitter orFacebook search results), blog entries, and so forth. The resultsretrieving component 110 may use Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), webservice application programming interfaces (APIs), and/or other commonprotocols for retrieving entries from a variety of sources. Anadministrator defines one or more topics of interest using theadministrative interface component 180 described further herein.

The results processing component 120 processes retrieved entries toidentify and determine a rank for each entry. The component 120establishes a common identifier to distinguish each entry from otherentries, and so that the system 100 can track movement of entries in alist over time. For example, the component 120 may use a uniformresource locator (URL) associated with an entry as an identifier forthat entry. The component 120 may track two identifiers: the identifierin the source system and a distinguishing identifier used acrosssystems. In some cases, the source identifier may be sufficiently uniqueto use for both purposes, but in other cases the component 120 generatesa suitable identifier for the latter purpose. The component 120 may alsouse other information to compose the identifier, such as the listingsource from which the results retrieving component 110 retrieved theentry. The rank for an entry may be based on a rank assigned to theentry by the listing source. For example, a search engine typicallylists search results starting with the most relevant result for akeyword (or keywords). The search engine may provide a fixed number ofsearch results on a page (e.g., 10) and the results processing component120 may factor in the page on which a search result is found and thenumber of the search result on that page to determine the rank (e.g.,number+page*10). Other listing sources may provide a rank directly orthe component may use other formulas appropriate for a particularlisting source to determine a rank.

The sentiment component 130 optionally applies a weighting factor to therank of each entry based on an information source associated with theentry. In addition to sentiment, the system 100 may consider andincorporate other factors, such as evaluative rating of media, integrityof a source, and so forth. For example, an entry from a popular andwidely read website may have a higher weighting factor than anindividual person's blog. On the other hand, if that individual has beenvery influential in the past, then the weighting factor may be high evenfor an individual. The weighting factor allows the system 100 to factorin a subjective reliability or reputation of a source in addition to theobjective rank determined by the results processing component 120. Anorganization may want to prioritize responding to fast moving contentsuch that content with a higher sentiment or reputation is addressedfirst.

The statistics component 140 combines the information generated by theresults processing component 120 and sentiment component 130 to create astatistical data point to store in the statistics store 150. Thestatistical data point may include additional information, such as atime at which the entry was retrieved and a scoring value based on therank and sentiment-weighting factor described herein. The system invokesthese components on a regular basis (e.g., every hour) to continuallycreate new statistical data points in the statistics store 150 for lateranalysis by the monitoring component 160. The statistical data pointstrack changes to entries over time.

The statistics store 150 is a data store that stores statistical datapoints generated by the statistics component 140. The data store mayinclude one or more hard drives, file systems, databases, storage areanetworks (SAN), cloud-based storage services, or any other technique forpersisting data so that it can be later retrieved and analyzed.

The monitoring component 160 periodically analyzes the data pointsstored in the statistics store 150 to determine a movement of entries atone or more listing sources related to one or more topics of interest.For example, a company administrator may use the system 100 to monitorarticles or other search results that include the company's name. Thesystem 100 may set up a periodic search for a keyword using thecompany's name, and track the results returned from the search usingpopular search engines. The monitoring component 160 identifies entriesthat repeat at various data points and identifies any change in rank orscoring value. For entries that repeat and that have moved over time,the component 160 determines the velocity of movement based on theidentified change in rank and a time of retrieval for multiple datapoints stored in the statistics store 150. In addition to velocity ofmovement, the component 160 may also note magnitude of movement (e.g.,an entry that has moved from rank 100 to rank 20 even over a longperiod). For any entries that have a determined velocity or magnitudeover a threshold amount, the monitoring component 160 invokes the alertcomponent 170 to inform an administrator.

The alert component 170 provides alerts to one or more administratorswhen at least one entry related to a topic of interest is moving greaterthan a threshold amount. The term administrator, as used herein,identifies any person that an organization designates to receive orconfigure reputation monitoring information, and is not limited to anadministrator having particular computer system privileges in thetypical information technology (IT) sense. The component 170 may includelimits configurable by the administrator to determine how much movementis sufficient to involve the administrator. The component 170 may alsosignal a priority (also configurable) of each entry, so that theadministrator is alerted more urgently for entries that are movingfaster than others are that are still of interest. An alert may includean email, short message service (SMS) message, outbound automatedinteractive voice response (IVR) solution, or any other notificationtechnique currently available or developed in the future. The alertprovides the administrator with an opportunity to address those contententries that are rapidly gaining popularity and to become aware of suchentries before they have reached the front-page news (or searchresults).

The administrative interface component 180 provides a user interfacethrough which an administrator can configure monitoring for one or moretopics of interest. The user interface may include a web-based form, agraphical user interface (GUI), a console user interface (CUI), or anyother type of interface for receiving information from a user toconfigure the system 100. Through the interface, the system 100 receivesinformation such as which keywords to monitor, listing sources at whichto monitor, a threshold level of movement before generating an alert,contact information for a person to which to send the alert, howfrequently to monitor, and so forth. An administrator may invoke theadministrative interface component 180 initially to set up monitoringand subsequently to modify settings (e.g., to tone down a too frequentalert or add new keywords to monitor).

The computing device on which the reputation monitoring system isimplemented may include a central processing unit, memory, input devices(e.g., keyboard and pointing devices), output devices (e.g., displaydevices), and storage devices (e.g., disk drives or other non-volatilestorage media). The memory and storage devices are computer-readablestorage media that may be encoded with computer-executable instructions(e.g., software) that implement or enable the system. In addition, thedata structures and message structures may be stored or transmitted viaa data transmission medium, such as a signal on a communication link.Various communication links may be used, such as the Internet, a localarea network, a wide area network, a point-to-point dial-up connection,a cell phone network, and so on.

Embodiments of the system may be implemented in various operatingenvironments that include personal computers, server computers, handheldor laptop devices, multiprocessor systems, microprocessor-based systems,programmable consumer electronics, digital cameras, network PCs,minicomputers, mainframe computers, distributed computing environmentsthat include any of the above systems or devices, and so on. Thecomputer systems may be cell phones, personal digital assistants, smartphones, personal computers, programmable consumer electronics, digitalcameras, and so on.

The system may be described in the general context ofcomputer-executable instructions, such as program modules, executed byone or more computers or other devices. Generally, program modulesinclude routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, and soon that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract datatypes. Typically, the functionality of the program modules may becombined or distributed as desired in various embodiments.

FIG. 2 is a flow diagram that illustrates processing of theadministrative interface component of the reputation monitoring system,in one embodiment. Beginning in block 210, the component receives from auser a request to create a new monitoring instance. For example, anadministrator or other user may access a website for creating monitoringinstances. The system may provide a form or other user interface throughwhich the user can configure the monitoring instance as described in thefollowing blocks. Continuing in block 220, the component receives one ormore topics of interest that the user wants to monitor. For example, theuser may provide one or more keywords, such as the name of anorganization or of one or more products produced by an organization. Thetopics may include names, trademarks, nicknames, subject areas, and soforth.

Continuing in block 230, the component receives one or more listingsources to monitor. A listing source may include a search engine,aggregation site, RSS feed, or other source of ranked or rankable listentries that relate to the popularity of a topic. For example, a listingsource may be a search engine and each listing entry may represent asearch result ordered by rank from most relevant to least relevant.Continuing in block 240, the component receives any additionalconfiguration parameters. For example, the system may receive anindication of how often to sample for the popularity of the receivedtopics of interest, a threshold level of entry movement before sendingan alert, whether sentiment or author authority information shouldfactor into the analysis of movement, and so forth.

Continuing in block 250, the component stores the new monitoringinstance in a data store for periodic monitoring according to thereceived topics of interest, listing sources, and other parameters. Forexample, the component may store monitoring instances or profiles in adatabase and periodically scan listing sources to identify movement oftopics of interest stored in each profile. After block 250, these stepsconclude.

FIG. 3 is a flow diagram that illustrates processing of the reputationmonitoring system to monitor online content movement, in one embodiment.Beginning in block 310, the system retrieves one or more topics ofinterest to be monitored. For example, the system may access amonitoring profile that defines one or more search keywords to monitorfor new or fast moving search results. The monitoring profiles mayinclude a list of listing sources at which to monitor changes of entriesthat relate to topics of interest. For example, a monitoring profile mayspecify that a subscriber would like to monitor entries related to thekeyword “Dell” at the Bing search engine.

Continuing in block 320, the system queries at least one listing sourcefor entries related to the retrieved topics of interest. For example, ifthe listing source is a search engine, then the system may perform asearch specifying one or more keywords related to the retrieved topicsof interest. The listing source returns a list of ordered resultsrelating to the topics of interest provided. Continuing in block 330,the system classifies a sentiment of each returned entry. The sentimentmay relate to author authority, blog influence, and other metrics thatdefine a reliability or importance of the particular entry. In somecases, the system distinguishes sentiment from overall evaluation of themedia (of which sentiment is another component). Search engines, in thisexample, establish a ranking with their own algorithms and thereputation monitoring system may accept that this ranking incorporatesan influence/impact factor. The importance may be related to ahistorical volume of readership of a web site associated with the entry.In some embodiments, the system may determine search results that arealready highly ranked, and deem sites to which such results refer to besites of high authority when the sites come up much deeper in the searchresults.

Continuing in block 340, the system stores metadata for each returnedentry in a result store, wherein the metadata includes an identifier ofeach entry, a rank of each entry, and any sentiment classification. Forexample, the system may create a row in a database table for each entryand include a URL or other information as an identifier, the order ofthe entry in the returned results as a rank, and so forth. Continuing inblock 350, the system compares the returned entries with previouslystored metadata related to earlier instances of the entries. Forexample, the system may perform the steps of blocks 310 to 340periodically and store the results in a data store. Over time, theresults record the movement of particular entries, which can be matchedby their identifiers. For example, two entries with the same URLtypically refer to the same site and content item, and thus movement ofa particular URL in a set of results from a listing source can indicateincreased popularity and/or relevance of the content referenced by theURL.

Continuing in block 360, the system identifies stored entries thatindicate movement at a rate greater than a threshold stored by thesystem. For example, an administrator may preconfigure the system toindicate that an entry is fast moving when the entry jumps a certainnumber of rank levels (e.g., 10 positions) in a particular timeinterval. The system identifies entries that meet this threshold basedon the current set of returned entries. Continuing in block 370, thesystem generates an alert to one or more subscribers for each identifiedentry that has moved more than the threshold. For example, a monitoringprofile may include contact information for alerting a user when entriesmatch the monitoring profile and a configured level of movement overtime. The alert may include an email, text message, instant message(IM), automated phone call, or other form of notification to thesubscriber.

Continuing in block 380, the system waits for the next time interval torepeat the process. For example, the system may perform the above stepsevery 10 minutes or every hour to identify results that have movedduring that time. Different intervals may make sense for differentlisting sources. For example, a particular search engine may crawl fornew results hourly, such that retrieving results more often than hourlyis ineffective, but retrieving results after too many hours may missrelevant movement. An administrator may configure the interval forparticular listing sources or the system may dynamically determine anappropriate interval based on observation of when results change (i.e.,if results are not changing the interval may be too short). After block380, the system loops to block 380 and the process repeats untilmonitoring is cancelled by an administrator or owner of a monitoringprofile.

The system may continuously monitor a wide variety of topics of interestfor a wide variety of subscribers. Those of ordinary skill in the artwill recognize numerous ways to efficiently perform processing of taskswhere there are many potentially related tasks. For example, if twodifferent subscribers are interested in monitoring the same topics, thenthe system may reuse processing performed for one subscriber to provideresults for the other. Likewise, the system may spread out monitoringqueries the monitoring interval so that resource demands are spread outand so that the system does not place an undo load on listing sources byproducing many contemporaneous requests.

In some embodiments, the reputation monitoring system provides an APIthrough which other software components can interact with the system.For example, rather than receiving a user alert, a subscriber may wantto invoke an automated script when notification of a fast moving contentitem is received. The system may provide push notifications or allowsoftware components to poll the system to retrieve new fast movingresults. As another example, the system may be used by third partysystems as a building block to build larger solutions. Accordingly, thesystem may receive configuration of new monitoring profilesprogrammatically through the API. Thus, the system can be used byorganizations that want to drive business workflows automatically basedon notification of the types of events that the system provides,described further herein.

In some embodiments, the reputation monitoring system may providevarious levels of automated response to fast moving content items. Forexample, if a blog author has written a post that is rapidly gaining inpopularity and where automated analysis (e.g., using keywords or otherindicators) indicates that the post is negative for a particular brand,the brand owner may instruct the system to automatically comment on theblog post indicating that the brand owner is aware of the issue that isthe subject of the post and will follow up with further details. In someinstances, customer satisfaction can be noticeably increased by knowingthat an organization is listening to complaints or other criticism andis taking appropriate action.

In some embodiments, the reputation monitoring system may be used by athird party other than an organization whose reputation is beingmonitored. For example, although described herein for use byorganizations as a defensive tool, the system can also be usedoffensively, such as by a journalist that would like to monitor topicsrelated to particular companies that the journalist covers. Thejournalist may seek to get a scoop on new stories before others becomeaware of the stories, but being notified about content that is rapidlyincreasing in popularity. As another example, an organization such asGreenpeace could use the system to monitor articles about corporateenvironment wrongdoing and to get involved in issues gaining popularity.In some embodiments, the system may provide a generic web-based servicethat any party can use to monitor a particular set of keywords or topicsusing a variety of listing sources selected by the party. The system canthen provide alerts related to the topics that the party selects,regardless of who that party is.

In some embodiments, the reputation monitoring system provides analysisacross listing sources to determine relevance of a content item. Forexample, the system may add up hits or perform some other calculationacross listing sources to determine increasing popularity or movement ofthe content item. The system can add hits on Twitter, YouTube, searchengines, and so forth as well as popularity of those posting thecomments (e.g., reach) to create a comprehensive representation of thepopularity of a topic across various Internet sources.

From the foregoing, it will be appreciated that specific embodiments ofthe reputation monitoring system have been described herein for purposesof illustration, but that various modifications may be made withoutdeviating from the spirit and scope of the invention. For example,although organizational reputation has been described as one motivationfor using the system, the system can have numerous other applications toother fields of interest. In addition, the system is not limited to anyone type of listing source and can be adapted to monitor new sources ofcontent ranking as they are created. Accordingly, the invention is notlimited except as by the appended claims.

1. A computer-implemented method for monitoring changes in the relevanceof online content, the method comprising: receiving one or more topicsof interest to be monitored; querying at least one listing source forentries related to the received topics of interest; storing metadata foreach returned entry in a result store, wherein the metadata includes anidentifier of each entry and a rank of each entry; comparing thereturned entries with previously stored metadata related to earlierinstances of the entries; identifying stored entries that indicatemovement at a rate greater than a threshold stored by the system; andgenerating at least one alert to one or more subscribers for eachidentified entry that has moved more than the threshold, wherein thepreceding steps are performed by at least one processor.
 2. The methodof claim 1 wherein receiving one or more topics of interest comprisesaccessing a monitoring profile stored in a data store that defines oneor more search keywords to monitor for search result movement.
 3. Themethod of claim 1 wherein receiving one or more topics of interestcomprises receiving a monitoring profile that includes a list of listingsources at which to monitor changes of entries that relate to the topicsof interest.
 4. The method of claim 1 wherein querying at least onelisting source comprises performing a search specifying one or morekeywords related to the retrieved topics of interest by sending a searchrequest to a search engine.
 5. The method of claim 1 wherein querying atleast one listing source comprises receiving a list of ordered resultsrelating to the topics of interest provided.
 6. The method of claim 1further comprising, before storing metadata for each returned entry,classifying a sentiment of each returned entry and storing the sentimentwith the stored metadata.
 7. The method of claim 1 wherein storingmetadata for each returned entry comprises creating a row in a databasetable for each entry and including a URL for each entry as an identifierand an order of the entry in the returned results as a rank.
 8. Themethod of claim 1 wherein comparing the returned entries comprisesidentifying a current entry and previous entry with a matching URL, andcomparing the rank of the previous entry with the rank of the currententry to determine movement of popularity of content associated with theURL.
 9. The method of claim 1 wherein identifying stored entriescomprises accessing a preconfigured threshold and identifying entriesthat meet the threshold based on the current set of returned entries.10. The method of claim 1 wherein generating at least one alertcomprises accessing contact information for alerting a user from amonitoring profile and sending a communication to the user via theaccessed contact information.
 11. A computer system for monitoringcontent potentially affecting a reputation of an organization, thesystem comprising: a processor and memory configured to execute softwareinstructions; a results retrieving component configured to periodicallyretrieve entries related to a topic of interest from a listing source; aresults processing component configured to process retrieved entries toidentify and determine a rank for each entry; a statistics componentconfigured to create a historical data point based on the determinedrank for each entry; a statistics store configured to store data pointsgenerated by the statistics component; a monitoring component configuredto periodically analyze the stored data points stored to determine amovement of entries at one or more listing sources related to one ormore topics of interest; an alert component configured to provide alertsto one or more administrators or external systems after determining thatat least one entry related to a topic of interest is moving greater thana threshold amount; and an administrative interface component configuredto provide a user interface through which an administrator can configuremonitoring for one or more topics of interest.
 12. The system of claim11 wherein the results retrieving component is further configured toperiodically retrieve search results based on keywords related to thetopic of interest from an Internet-based search engine.
 13. The systemof claim 11 wherein the results processing component is furtherconfigured to generate a common identifier to distinguish each entryfrom other entries, so that the system can track movement of entries ina list over time.
 14. The system of claim 11 wherein the resultsprocessing component is further configured to determine the rank basedon a rank assigned to the entry by the listing source.
 15. The system ofclaim 11 further comprising a sentiment component configured to apply aweighting factor to the determined rank of each entry based on aninformation source associated with the entry, wherein the weightingfactor indicates a historical level of influence and reliability of theinformation source and wherein the statistics component is furtherconfigured to combine the weighting factor with the determined rank foreach entry to create the historical data point.
 16. The system of claim11 wherein the statistics component is further configured to associate atime of retrieval with each data point.
 17. The system of claim 11wherein the monitoring component is further configured to set up aperiodic search for a keyword using a company's name and track theresults returned from the search at a search engine.
 18. The system ofclaim 11 wherein the monitoring component is further configured toidentify entries that repeat at multiple data points and identify anychange in rank between the data points to determine the movement. 19.The system of claim 11 wherein the alert component is further configuredto signal a priority of each entry, so that an administrator is alertedmore urgently for entries that are moving faster than others.
 20. Acomputer-readable storage medium comprising instructions for controllinga computer system to configure monitoring for online content, whereinthe instructions, when executed, cause a processor to perform actionscomprising: receiving a request to create a new monitoring profile;receiving one or more topics of interest to monitor; receiving one ormore listing sources at which to monitor the received topics ofinterest, wherein at least one listing source is a search engine and atleast one topic of interest is specified by keywords; receiving aconfiguration parameter that specifies a threshold level of entrymovement before sending an alert; and storing the created monitoringprofile in a data store for periodic monitoring according to thereceived topics of interest, listing sources, and threshold.